The Conservative governments action in the issue regarding Taff Vale is another significant factor which lost the conservative party vote and allowed the Liberals the chance to win votes from those voters formerly attached to the Conservative party.
The dispute began in the Taff Vale Railway Company in South Wales who had refused to grant wage increase requested by the unions despite massive profits by the company.
When the union threatened to go on strike, the company brought in ‘black- leg’ labour and also took out an injunction preventing unions from picketing. This caused a great public outcry among the working classes. They felt that their right to strike was undermined by the black leg labour brought in. Also the government lost the votes of the union who were now liable to pay unlimited damages for loss caused by any strike action they took. This convinced many trade unionist that there was a massive need for a political party which would represent the interests and view of the working people, who are now beginning to feel that their view are not addressed by the conservatives in parliament. Many unions were forced to affiliate to the only party they saw fitting which was the newly formed Labour Representative Committee.
To add insult to an already sore injury, the company sued Union for large sums of money for the strike they chose to undertake and when the case went to the House of Lords it was awarded in favour on the company. Essentially, they could either not go on strike thus failing to safeguard their members or they could go on strike and risk bankruptcy. This was a defining issue as many Trade Unionist were beginning to affiliate away from the Conservative party. Many blamed Balfour for allowing Trade Unions and working class interests to be attacked and relatively not doing anything about it. Trade unions had expected him to take action by introducing legislation that would grant them immunity from legal action resulting from a strike, but Balfour could not risk loosing the conservatives’ main support, which came from the middle class employers. His later actions, did not however, reassure Trade Unionist; they felt that the best way to safeguard their interest would be to increase representation of labour in parliament, which potentially made the LRC a powerful body ahead of the Conservatives.
Another significance situation, which came out of the Taff Vale issue, was the Lib-Lab Pact. This came about because the LRC was strengthened so much that it attracted the attention of Herbert Gladstone. He proposed that the two new upcoming part should try to avoid a three cornered contest in the election which could result on the election of the conservative party again as those with radical votes would be split between Liberals and Labour.
The pact was later agreed in 1903; the idea was that where the LRC decided to run for election, Liberals would not and vice versa. Also in some constituencies, the LRC would support the Liberal candidate up for election and in return the Liberals promised to pass legislation giving Trade Unions Protection against legal actions for damage. This more or less guaranteed the support of Trade Unionist to the Liberal party in the next election. By doing this, these two parties are thereby making sure that the Conservative Party does not return to an extended run in power.
The 1902 Education Act was another big factor in the Liberal Victory of 1906 election. This was a major piece of welfare, again backed by Balfour and his failing Conservative government. Britain is in a massive Economic competition from USA and Germany and both of the nations provided secondary and technical education for their working classes. This meant that their workers were able to bring out more thereby able to produce more. Without this secondary education act being granted, Britain would continue to fall behind other countries.
The act had two main elements, it allowed Voluntary Schools to be funded by the rates and it abolished School Boards. This meant that schools were to be run by local council education committees from 1902.
This act alienated the non-conformists because they felt that church schools shouldn’t be funded from the rates, they wanted church schools to be abolished and because of low funding this was bound to happen, but was rescued by this act. By agreeing to this act the conservative government had alienated them selves from the vote of the non-conformists. They waged a national campaign against the act; some non-conformists didn’t pay the rights and faced prison sentence. There were 7,000 prosecutions for non-payment. The Liberal party pledged that they would repeal the 1902 Act if it won the next election; this whole issue reinvested power into the Liberals to fight the Conservative who people were seeing as old and boring. The Tories totally misjudged the mood of the voting public and their views, this would come back to haunt them in the near future.
Other controversial issues which were not handled properly by Arthur Balfour who was in charge, also contributed to the fall of the Conservative party and the rise of the Liberals.
When war broke out in the Boers, British troops were struggling to defeat them, that it took them two years to do so. This only worked after severe tactics, this tactics was greatly criticised by the public back home and Balfour was accused of letting his troops perform such inhumane acts in the Boers. This comes after other Empires had perceived British power over other nations as a force for good and civilisation ‘Pax Britannica’. Events in South Africa undermined this and the public turned away from imperialism and rejected the party associated with it. This transformed the political climate in Britain and also a proved a principal catalyst for political change.
Another issue, which alienated different sections of the society and contributed significantly to the election loss, was the issue regarding Chinese slavery.
At the end of the Boer War a severe labour shortage arose in the British Empire in South Africa. To combat this the British government decided to allow companies to import labour from China. Chinese workers were extremely easy to get and were cheap to afford. To recover the cost of recruitment and transportation, the Chinese workers had to work long hours and their pay was low. This workers were made to live and work in extremely bad conditions, conditions not even fit for junkyard rubbish.
Flogging and torture was sanctioned and was used on the workers. News on this development caused a massive outrage in Britain especially to the Non- Conformist, Working class and Trade Unionist.
Non- Conformist were worried about the moral well being of the men packed in camps and away from their families; thus reminding people of the conditions during the Boer war, which the government had already been criticised for previously and would rather forget.
Working Class viewed this as them being excluded from the benefits of the empire because they felt jobs vacancies would be less for them
Trade Unionist were anxious about the precedence that might be set in Britain, the fact that employers will try to undermine strike actions by undertaking the same solution. As you can see this decisions made the government very unpopular among these groups of people in the society, which turned out to be a potential bombshell for the party involved.
‘Slavery’ was an exaggeration and it was a term the Liberals apologised for using in parliament but by then the damage had been done and bad image put on the conservative for exploiting workers.
This issues surrounding or resulting from the Boer War enabled the Liberals to capture working class vote. Most of the working class had been won over by the appeal of empire. This had now been tarnished badly; this chance the Liberals saw and took with immediate effect.
There was much evidence to suggest that the leadership of Balfour was one of the significant reasons why the Conservatives lost the election. Although there were other achievements made by Balfour, these were overshadowed by a succession of mishandled problems.
Often Balfour came across to the public as a man who was extremely cautious, lacked drive and was suspicious of change. This was at a time when the nation was calling for a serious change in the countries system. Balfour appeared to most people as uninterested in the events and seemed bored with all the tedium of government business.
Balfour’s personal failings were seen to be significant in the 1900- 1905 because many believed the problems they were facing were caused mainly by Balfour. The conservative party was on serious threat as favour in their party was fading significantly.
People already has a critical view of Balfour and if the impending disaster which came on the C. party was to be take likely then all Balfour's criticisms are fully justified which cause a serious fall in the Party.
Elections campaign for the Conservative Party was a great shambles. The party seemed to have lost all its power and drive when it got to election time. They were more concentrated on the big wins rather than the smaller area. This eventually led to the fact that around 27 Liberals in the election were elected without any opposition.
The state of the Conservative party seemed to justify people claims that they were a party in the decline. The departure of the famous hardworking Party members didn’t do very much to help the parties cause.
The departure of Richard Middleton marked a fall in organisation, which undermined their ability to fight a good campaign. More serious for the party was the fading support of the party. Their campaign was ineffective as they seemed disorganised and not united as the Liberals were.
I conclude that all this incidences didn’t do much to help the conservative aim for re-election but on the other hand spurred the Liberals on with more force. The Liberal victory showed that the Conservative party had been in power too long and their methods for dealing with some situations are old and ineffective. It also showed that the party was in decline and in need of some change and a serious reorganisation.
All this gave the Liberals a serious chance, which they gladly took. Many historians would argue that the Liberals exploited well the failure of the Conservative party, rather than the victory of the Liberals.
This because turnover seats were not caused by a mass conversion from Conservatism to Liberalism but because a large number of people who had abstained from voting were forced to vote against the Liberals and the only party available were the Liberals.
